


can't bury anything without digging it up

by thequeenofokay



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, It's not murder if ur ex says its fine tho :/, Non-Canonical Character Death, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofokay/pseuds/thequeenofokay
Summary: ‘What was that?’ she hisses.He smiles down at her. She presses her forearm into his throat and tries not to think about the fact that this is the first time they’ve touched in a year. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he tells her calmly.‘Do you intend to spend the next month humiliating me at every opportunity?’‘Don’t act like you’re not planning to undermine me at every turn, Marisa.’—with her husband's murder still fresh, Marisa is invited on an expedition to Svalbard by the Arctic Institute. Unfortunately, it means spending a month trapped in the North with her ex-lover.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 136





	can't bury anything without digging it up

**Author's Note:**

> \+ i originally intended to write something vaguely festive and instead this is a dark-ish take on post-affair, pre-canon masriel being generally terrible to themselves, each other and everyone around them. so uhh, merry christmas i guess.
> 
> \+ quick warning for canon-ish typical sexism, minor oc death, and marisa having a fairly awful view of herself and her world. 80% of what marisa thinks about in this is death, sex and spiting her ex but i mean--if you were a twenty-three year old widow whose life had just come crashing down around her, what else would you think about.
> 
> \+ the title is from "rabid" by nicole dollanger.

**[before]**

The letter arrives at her London apartment with the seal of the Arctic Institute while she drinks Tokay on the balcony. The monkey sets it in her lap and stares up at her, waiting.

It invites her on a month-long winter mission to St. Michael’s research laboratory in the depths of Svalbard.

Marisa had thought, at twenty-three, she might be the wife of the prime minister and an eminent scholar in her own right. Instead, she is a disgraced widow, barred from seeing her bastard child, forced to claw her way back into the fold at St. Sophia’s. This letter is a lifeline—a chance to do something of enough note to regain her an ounce of respect and a handful of contacts at the Institute.

She writes back her acceptance without a second thought.

* *

She realises what a fool she has been the moment she steps into the office of the Institute’s chairman, Dr Rosen. She recognises most of the half a dozen assembled scholars, but there, lounging against Dr Rosen’s desk as though this is _his_ dominion, is Asriel.

His eyes burn her skin. She’s almost glad when he turns away, as if disgusted, but his dæmon continues to stare.

Dr Rosen stands to greet her. She’s always liked the man; he treats her as though he admires her work in almost equal measure to her body. He introduces the others: Dr Drummond is a geographer from Cambridge who looks too fresh and naïve to have ever travelled to the North before; Baron Carr’s finances fill the Institute’s coffers; Professor Krispin is an experimental theologian whose papers Marisa finds tolerable.

‘And I hear you’ve met Lord Asriel,’ he says. He smiles, like the scandal they made was all an inside joke and not the talk of London. ‘He’ll be leading the expedition.’

‘I think I may recognise him,’ she says, returning the smile. Across the room, Asriel’s dæmon bares her teeth.

Dr Rosen lays out the parameters of their expedition: St. Michael’s is a remote laboratory which is never usually utilised in winter, when the conditions are dangerous and unforgiving, but the atmospheric conditions for the measuring of anbaromagnetism and cosmological radiation and perhaps even Rusakov Particles.

‘Does anyone have any questions?’ Dr Rosen asks.

Marisa is surprised that Asriel has made it this far without an outburst, but now he takes the opportunity to round on the chairman.

‘Why is _she_ here?’

Marisa folds her hands demurely in front of herself. She presses down on the rage that begins to boil inside of her. She won’t let them know that this affects her.

‘Mrs. Coulter is a capable experimental theologian, Lord Asriel,’ Dr Rosen says patiently. ‘Whatever your personal feelings may be—'

‘This has nothing to with me _personal feelings_ ,’ Asriel snaps. ‘She’s hardly qualified. She’s a liability. I won’t have her there.’

She imagines gouging his eyes out with her fingernails. Too messy, perhaps. She thinks of strangling him instead, pressing her hands around his throat until all of the judgement leaves his eyes and they go blank and lifeless. She finds it calming.

‘I think you’ll find, Lord Asriel,’ she says, ‘that a student is only as good as their teacher. I seem to remember accompanying you on a number of expeditions to the North. Would you have doubt cast on your own abilities as a teacher?’

She sees the muscles in his jaw clenching. Outsmarting him is such a delicious high.

‘It is not your choice to make,’ says Dr Rosen. ‘Mrs. Coulter will be a part of your expedition. My decision is final.’

* *

**[week one]**

He ignores her for most of the airship ride to Lapland in favour of maps and plans. Drummond and Krispin assist him. Drummond, who can barely be older than Marisa, is hooked on his every word with that look of reverence that Asriel is so adept at inspiring in people. She’s sure he’ll learn the sorry truth that Asriel is only mortal soon enough.

They stop for a night in Trollesund, and she lets Baron Carr accost her over dinner in a smoky, crowded inn. He reminds her of some of Edward’s old friends, and there’s something comforting in it. She knows which games to play with him.

‘I had a niece who studied at St. Sophia’s,’ he tells her. ‘It’s quite the respectable institution.’

‘Isn’t it just.’ She smiles, sweet and demure—everything he wants her to be. ‘There’s nowhere I feel more at home than when I’m doing my research.’

It has the desired effect. He pats her hand across the table, half paternal and half something more impure. ‘It’s always so refreshing to see women like you involving themselves in scholarly pursuits. If you ever need a good word put in, Mrs. Coulter, do not hesitate to come to me.’

His badger dæmon reaches out towards her monkey, but he darts away, teeth bared. ‘You’re too kind, Baron Carr,’ she says.

* *

It’s a day’s trek from the nearest aerodock to the laboratory. St. Michael’s is located further north than Marisa has ever been before, tucked between sharp, black mountains and endless white glacier. There will be no sunlight this late in the year.

It’s smaller than other stations Marisa has visited in the North. Most of its space is dedicated to a workroom with desks and experimental equipment, but there’s also a storeroom, a furnace room and a little kitchen. The laboratory was certainly not made to accommodate a woman. The washroom is tiny and dank. There’s only one bunkroom, with six rudimentary beds and not a shred of privacy.

She hovers in the door while the others unpack their things. Her monkey inspects the room. ‘Do you plan to have me sleep in here with the rest of you men?’ she demands of Asriel.

He hardly casts her a glance. ‘Male company doesn’t tend to bother you, Marisa.’

She doesn’t miss Krispin’s snort of laughter. She resists the urge to hit Asriel.

‘Come now, Asriel,’ Baron Carr says, all old-world chivalry, ‘it wouldn’t be right to have the lady in here.’

Asriel relents. Marisa doubts it is because he really cares about what Carr has to say, but more that he’s made his point and no longer cares. ‘She can sleep in the furnace room, if there’s space.’

She drags the bed across the laboratory floor to the furnace room by herself. Drummond tried to help, but she doesn’t need Asriel to see her stooping to taking assistance from that snivelling boy.

He stops in her doorway as she is readying herself to sleep. Her whole body aches from the trek across the ice, but as soon as she catches site of him, the exhaustion is swept away.

She shoves him; his back hits the wall with a heavy _clunk_. The monkey leaps at the leopard’s throat and holds it down. She is always a little ashamed when the violent side of her comes out but sometimes, especially when it comes to Asriel, needs must.

‘What was that?’ she hisses.

He smiles down at her, which only makes the anger inside her burn brighter. She presses her forearm into his throat and tries not to think about the fact that this is the first time they’ve touched in a year.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he tells her calmly.

‘Do you intend to spend the next month humiliating me at every opportunity?’ 

‘Don’t act like you’re not planning to undermine me at every turn, Marisa.’

‘Is that what you think of me? That I would be so petty as to ruin this research to hurt you?’

His expression shifts. It’s no longer just a game to him. ‘After what you did at my trial? Of course I do.’

She pulls away, and Asriel rubs at his throat. ‘What I did at your trial?’ she repeats. ‘I tried to save myself from the mess _you_ made.’

‘I killed your husband to save you and that child, and you repaid me by selling my out to save your own skin.’ He’s in her space now, his eyes bright with anger.

‘You ruined _everything_. If you had just let _me_ deal with Edward, none of this would ever have had to happen.’

‘You would have preferred if he had murdered the baby, murdered me, and then returned to finish you off? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘You ruined my reputation!’

‘Your reputation? Is that truly all you care about? I lost my lands, my money—all of it,’ he spits.

‘Yet you still managed to get your hands on the baby,’ she retorts. It’s been eating at her ever since she heard of the girl’s arrival at Jordan College.

‘I did what had to be done to keep her safe.’

‘You _took_ her from me.’

Asriel scoffs. ‘You didn’t want her.’

‘That’s not the _point_.’

For a long moment, they are silent. Maybe he’s imagining Edward blowing out her brains. When they used to argue, she thinks he was usually thinking of ripping her clothes off.

 _Men_. So vulgar.

‘Is this how it’s going to be, then?’ she asks. ‘A month of us trying to tear each other’s throats out?’

He sighs. Some of the fight seems to leave him as he resigns himself to their situation. ‘I can’t trust you, Marisa,’ he says. ‘You’ll stay here, at the laboratory, while I take a team to make readings on the glacier.’

When he’s gone, she slides down onto the bed. The golden monkey hovers, anxious, as she tries to control her breathing.

* *

**[week two]**

At first, she thinks Asriel will relent and bring her with him on his ventures into the snow. But the days drag on, and each time he takes Baron Carr and Drummond, and leaves her with Professor Krispin to make sense of the information which they’ve already gathered. Krispin makes for terrible company. He smokes more than Asriel ever did and seems to have made it his personal mission to insinuate his misgivings about her sex into every conversation.

On their third day working of working together, he snaps his fingers and pushes his mug across the desk towards her. ‘Coffee,’ he says, not looking up from a chart of anbaromagnetism against atmospheric disturbances.

She presses her lips together into a fine line. ‘There’s coffee in the kitchen, professor.’

‘Fetch it for me.’ He motions again for her to hurry up. ‘That must be why Asriel allowed you here, is it not?’

Anger swells inside Marisa. She’s no one’s servant. She pushes her chair back loudly.

When she returns, she lets her temper get the better of her and spills it across his lap. ‘Oops.’ She smiles sweetly, ignoring his threats to tell Asriel. Asriel used to find it amusing when she found a way to get one over men like Krispin.

In the days that follow, the professor seems to content himself with giving her the bulk of their workload while he grumbles to himself and stares out of the window. She lets him, taking it as a welcome distraction.

She is making herself a cup of chocolatl at the stove when she hears the others return. When she returns to her desk, she finds Asriel there, leafing through her papers.

‘What are you doing?’ she demands.

He picks up a stack of her results. ‘Think of it as an audit of your work.’ He gives her that wicked, baiting look, eyes bright and lips pulled back into what some people would consider a smile.

She refuses to rise to it. ‘Don’t keep it long,’ she says. ‘I might need them.’ She sits down pointedly, picks up her pen, and lets the monkey glare at him until he leaves.

* *

The laboratory had been restocked during the summer months when it was more accessible, but she notes that a large part of their provisions seems to be comprised of Tokay, whiskey and smokeleaf. Professor Krispin seems to think himself above drinking with the others and Drummond only joins sporadically, and never comes close to matching Carr and Asriel drink for drink.

Marisa has mostly avoided these drinking sessions, but that evening the pair of them have the whiskey and cigarettes out on the desk next to hers before she’s finished working for the evening.

It’s Carr that beckons her over, but Asriel that pulls a chair up next to himself for her.

She always used to drink with Asriel. There had been something freeing in it. For a while, she’d felt like it might not matter if the alcohol made her let things slip she’d never normally tell a soul.

She’d thought he would never use it to hurt her. She knows better now. The things they said to each other in the months after Lyra’s birth and that awful trial still catch her unawares, haunt her and refuse to let her breathe.

‘You work her too hard, Asriel,’ Carr says. ‘Look at her—she’s at that desk morning and night. She needs a break.’ He pours her a generous glass of whiskey and hands it to her. ‘There you are, dear. Drink up.’

She takes it, sipping gently. ‘He doesn’t work me as hard as I’d like,’ she tells Carr, with that conspiratorial tone like it’s their secret. ‘He keeps me trapped in here all day, when I’d be better out there with you, taking readings.’

Carr looks uncomfortable for a moment. Maybe he knows her words are not for his benefit. ‘I’m sure Asriel has his reasons,’ Carr says, glancing at the other man. ‘It’s dangerous for a lady.’

Asriel snorts. Marisa prides herself on being a little more refined, and only smiles patiently. ‘My safety didn’t seem so important to him when he insisted that I be his research partner on the most ridiculous chase around Tartary a few years ago for—what was it Asriel?’

And like that, the tension is gone and the conversation flows as Asriel spins the tale of their trip to find a collection of old manuscripts in the hands of a clan of witches, embellishing the danger and omitting all the times its clear this was mostly just an excuse to sleep together away from her husband’s eye. Asriel has a way of making people listen when he speaks. It’s that power behind his words and his deeds that always drew her in.

It’s late by the time it grows quiet again. Marisa can’t quite remember how many more drinks have been poured for her. She feels soft and light, and like if she laid her head on Asriel’s shoulder now she would be asleep in an instant.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he tells her. His voice is low so that Carr doesn’t hear. She thinks the whiskey really must have gone to his head.

‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’

He hums to himself. He sloshes his drink back and forth in his glass, narrowing his eyes in concentration so that none of it spills. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘but you must admit, you don’t make it easy.’

‘If you missed me,’ she says, her tongue getting the better of her, ‘you didn’t have to wait until we were trapped on Svalbard together.’

He lets out a breath of amusement. ‘I never said I missed you. Besides, London is your territory, and I’d fear for my life coming within a hundred paces of you there.’

‘No,’ she insists, ignoring the truth in his words, ‘you don’t know what it’s like back in London.’ She can hear the bitterness bleeding into her voice. She doesn’t want to get into another argument over who lost more as a result of their affair, so she only says, ‘It’s not how it used to be.’

Her thigh is pressed against hers and he’s leaning into her space. His thumb is on her knee, and she’s not sure how long it’s been there, but she does know that she’s suddenly aware of every inch of her body. Beneath them, the leopard is eyeing the monkey hungrily.

She considers kissing Asriel, just because she can, just to prove to herself that he still wants her. She had considered kissing Baron Carr earlier in the evening; he’s no older than Edward was, and in some lights, he might be more appealing. She wonders if it would make Asriel jealous, or if he would just think it was childish.

There’s a scrape as Carr heaves himself out of his chair and makes towards the bunkroom. Asriel moves away suddenly, as though he had forgotten the other man was in the room. The absence is as sharp and cold as an arctic wind.

Marisa stands too. She gathers her things without looking at him and heads for her own room. He doesn’t try to stop her.

She crawls into bed. Her stomach turns. Maybe she’d had more to drink than she realised. The golden monkey curls beside her with that treacherous look of loss in its eyes.

* *

Asriel is in the doorway of the furnace room the next morning. He doesn’t knock. ‘I need to speak with you,’ he says, skipping over any pleasantries. He was never any good at pleasantries. She wonders if it would have killed him to ask her how she was every once in a while.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve been reading the work you’ve done,’ he says. ‘I think you’re right.’

She can’t help the smile that spread across her face. ‘What was that?’ she asks innocently.

‘Don’t push it,’ he growls. ‘You know what you’re doing, better than Carr or Drummond or Krispin. I want you to come with us onto the ice.’

She doesn’t need his approval, but she won’t give up on the chance to get the recognition she deserves. ‘I want my name second on any paper you publish,’ she says.

‘Dr Krispin is more qualified than you,’ he tells her.

‘I don’t care,’ she retorts. ‘I’ve contributed more than he has. At least respect my work, Asriel.’

Appealing to his scholarly integrity has always been a sure way to get what she needs from him. ‘Fine,’ he agrees. ‘Your name can follow mine.’

‘And the baby,’ she says, as an afterthought. ‘I want you to let me see the baby.’ If he can have access to the child, Marisa wants it too.

His expression shifts. Maybe this was the wrong time to bring it up. ‘Prove to me,’ he tells her, ‘that you deserve to see her.’

 _Bastard._ He’s a hypocritical bastard. She doubts he has it in him to care less about the child, but he won’t give up this opportunity to make her play nice when it suits him.

‘I won’t play games just to amuse you, Asriel.’ She used to love playing games with him. They used to have such fun.

‘But you do love to bargain.’

‘Fine,’ she says. Sometimes she resents how well he knows her. ‘I’ll play nice. For her.’

* *

**[week three]**

Routine settles over St. Michael’s by the middle of their time in Svalbard. Marisa joins Asriel, Drummond and Carr during the day to collect their readings. In the evenings, she sits with Asriel at a desk and they discuss their findings. Something inside her feels a little fuller in those moments. She had forgotten what it felt like to be comfortable and trusted.

As the week draws on, it becomes clear to them that there is a gap in their results: they have nothing from the mountain behind the laboratory, and Asriel is insistent that the extra altitude could yield something promising.

‘I’ll take Baron Carr and Marisa,’ he tells them. ‘They have experience climbing. We won’t make it in just a day, but three should be enough.’

Most of the first day is taken on foot and in silence. There’s a distinct feeling of apprehension hanging over the three. On the second, their ascent becomes too steep to do anything but climb with ice picks and crampons.

Marisa has hardly had a moment to rest in hours. Her arms are burning with strain, and her monkey isn’t helping by chittering nervously from her shoulder. Beneath her, she can hear Carr breathing heavily. Ahead, Asriel has reached a ridge where the mountainside becomes less sheer. His dæmon is pacing the ground above him, finding their route upwards.

Marisa adjusts her footing, reaching up to dig her pick into the ice again. She catches site of something dark out of the corner of her eye, and then suddenly there is shrieking by her ear. _Cliff-ghasts_.

She buries her pick in the ice and clings on. She feels claws drag across her back, trying to pull her down. Below, she can hear Carr shouting and his badger dæmon trying to

She understands with perfect clarity what will happen next. The cliff-ghasts won’t stop until they’ve won, and someone has lost.

She’s not going to lose. She’s not going to fall.

Without another thought, she reaches down and kicks sharply at Carr’s fingers. She feels his grip loosen under her boot. She kicks harder, catching his skull with her heel.

He screams when he falls. The thud as he hits the snow below is almost lost against the sound of the wind. The cliff-ghasts swoop after him, shrieking.

She takes a deep, shaking breath. Freezing air hits her lungs and stings. She forces herself to move, before the cliff-ghasts have had their fun and return for her.

Asriel hauls her up the last few feet. He looms above her while she crouches, shaking, in the snow.

She stares over the ledge to where Baron Carr’s body lies, still surrounded by cliff-ghasts. She can hardly pick it out against the white snow in the darkness. He cared about her, in a way. She searches herself for remorse and finds only a hollow nothingness. The wind pushes at her back, like it’s trying to remind her that it could push her over the ledge too, if it wanted.

‘We should go.’ Asriel pulls her sharply at her jacket. She meets his eyes. He knows what she’s done. She thinks this will be it; he’ll never let her see the child again. He says nothing, just carries on up the mountain without waiting to check that she follows.

His leopard pauses.

‘You did what you had to do,’ she says. The measure in her voice is always such a strange contrast to Asriel’s tempers. ‘We know that.’

* *

Drummond greets them at the entrance to the laboratory when they arrive back a day later. The boy has a frantic look in his eyes, and his mouse dæmon is skittering anxiously up and down his leg.

‘What’s happened?’ Asriel demands without preamble.

‘It’s Professor Krispin. He’s—’ Drummond breaks off, swallowing. ‘I think he’s ill, Lord Asriel.’

Krispin is in his bed, half awake and muttering about God and wicked women and everything else men say when they’re going mad. Asriel has Drummond feed him a little poppy to calm him. Marisa lingers, watching Krispin sweat and turn in a fitful sleep.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asks.

‘Sometimes the darkness in the North gets into people’s heads, if they’re not used to it,’ Asriel says. ‘There’s nothing to be done but wait it out.’

Marisa doesn’t pray often, but that night she wonders if she should. She wonders if they’ve angered God, somehow. She wonders if they’re cursed.

* *

**[week four]**

In their final week at the station, the weather grows harsher, Krispin’s condition refuses to improve and Drummond is increasingly jumpy, like a frightened rabbit in its cage. Asriel is beginning to come apart around the edges too, as his determination to finish their research becomes ever sharper, but quietly Marisa likes him better this way. He’s lost all the pretentions of being a civilised aristocrat.

‘We shouldn’t go out there,’ Drummond insists. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

Asriel is already stuffing equipment into his pack. ‘Then we’ll need to move quickly. Marisa?’ He glances up at her with a wolfish look that is equal parts amusement and irritation at Drummond.

She slides her snow goggles on, pulls up her hood and picks up her lamp. ‘I’m ready.’

Drummond is still grumbling as they set off into the snow. They ignore him, stalking ahead through the thick snow.

By the time they’ve taken the final cosmological radiation readings, Marisa’s hands are numb with cold and she lost feeling in her feet hours ago.

‘We’ll head back around the edge of the glacier,’ Asriel decides. Drummond is supposed to be navigating for them, but he keeps dragging behind, and the storm is still building. Every snowflake that hits exposed skin stings like a blade. Their visibility is growing worse by the minute.

‘Hurry, Drummond,’ she hears Asriel shout from ahead.

She turns back in time to see Drummond stumble. His ankle slides out from under him, and the noise as he hits the ice is sickening. His cry is like a deer caught by a hunter’s shot. His mouse dæmon scampers around him in a blind panic,

Asriel swears forcefully as he circles back to help Drummond. ‘Take his other side, Marisa,’ he shouts to her over the wind, and they help the man to his feet. They manage only a few agonisingly slow steps, half-dragging Drummond before she hears Asriel mutter profanities again and stop.

‘We’ll have to shelter for the night,’ he says. ‘We’ll never make it back like this.’

Marisa considers protesting, but he is already leading them towards cavern in the black mountains at the edge of the glacier. It isn’t much—more of an overhang than a cave, just deep enough for them to be protected from the worst of the wind.

She crouches down, holding her knees to her chest. Asriel is at her side, and next to him she can hear Drummond whimpering in pain while his dæmon squeaks shrilly.

Hours must pass. Her legs go numb. The chill has reached her bones and she’s started shivering. The monkey is hidden in her hood, shaking violently. She closes her eyes, hoping she might get some rest and forget the cold.

She thinks her eyes have only been shut for a moment or two, but it might have been longer. Then—a baby is crying. _Lyra._

She struggles to her feet. Her legs give out at first, and she falls into the snow, but she pulls herself back up. She is aware of Asriel trying to pull her back, but can’t he hear it? Lyra is out there, crying for her.

She stumbles forwards onto the glacier. It’s snowing so heavily she can hardly see more than a step in front of her, but she follows the sound forwards. She tries to shout, but the storm takes her voice.

She slips. If it hurts, she doesn’t notice. She continues on her hands and knees. The snow is soaking through her furs, and they feel impossibly heavy but it isn’t cold any more. It’s so warm. Maybe if she took her furs off, she could reach Lyra quicker. She reaches up to tug at the fastenings.

Arms wrap around her middle, pulling her up and away from the ice. She screams. Asriel is holding her to him.

‘No!’ she cries. ‘The baby, Asriel, she’s out there. We have to find her.’

He doesn’t seem to understand. She scratches at him and struggles, trying to force him to drop him, and she screams and screams until her voice is raw. He holds her so tightly she can hardly breathe.

‘Please, Marisa—’ he sounds hoarse, desperate, ‘—you have to stay with me. There’s nothing out there.’

She kicks at his legs. He stands fast. ‘No. You have to stay, just this once Marisa, _please_.’

Her screams have turned to sobs that stick in her throat and threaten to choke her. She feels heavy. Asriel is still murmuring to her, but she can’t focus on the words any longer and they blend with the sounds of the storm into a strange hum.

She closes her eyes.

In dreams, she’s still stumbling across the dark glacier, but instead of just her baby she finds Asriel standing over her husband’s bloodied body with Lyra in his arms. In dreams, the ice disappears from underneath her feet and she is drowning, drowning in the deep black ocean.

She slides in and out of consciousness. She sees snow and the endless black night, she sees Asriel stroke her cheek, more gently than he ever did when they were lovers. She sees the snow turn blood red and hears him tell God that he loves her, and it must be a dream because Asriel has never once told her that he loved her.

When she finally wakes, there is something hot and soft pressed against her side. She reaches out to touch it and feels fur—Stelmaria. She is in her bed at the research station, smothered by a mound of blankets and furs, with Stelmaria tucked in next to her. Only one of the lamps is lit, but she can make out Asriel sat on the edge of the bed, staring out of the little window into the storm that refuses to break.

She shifts. She sees Asriel swallow heavily as her body brushes against Stelmaria’s.

‘You’re awake.’ He turns to study her. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Exhausted,’ she mutters. The leopard moves away and says something to Asriel which she can’t catch.

He feeds her thin soup and she lets him tend to bruises on her hands and knees that she can’t remember receiving. She feels too weak and sore to protest.

‘I’m still cold,’ she mumbles. She knows she sounds plaintive and hates it. She hates showing vulnerability in front of him.

He doesn’t say anything, but his expression is too soft, too fond. He strips off his shoes and his outer layers while she watches and lifts the covers to climb in next to her. He opens his arms, and she shuffles into them like she’s twenty again and she’s fooled herself into thinking that he loves her.

She sleeps again, but this time she doesn’t dream, and when she wakes again there is more strength in her limbs.

Asriel is still there. His arms are still around her, and his fingertips stroke soft circles on her stomach. She knows what he wants from her. She knows what he needs as an assurance that she’s still living, breathing.

She doesn’t mind. She thinks she might need the same thing.

‘Asriel?’ she murmurs. There’s something she has to know first.

‘Mm?’

‘What happened to Drummond?’ she asks.

She feels him shakes his head. ‘Drummond didn’t make it. Not on his leg.’

She could pick this apart for years to come if she wanted: he chose to save her over their colleague. The boy froze to death, alone, so she could live. ‘A shame,’ she says.

‘You hated him,’ he reminds her.

‘Still,’ she says, ‘he was young. It’s such a precious thing, to be young, don’t you think?’

He leans over her, obscuring the low light and filling her vision. His fingers tangle in her hair. She thinks he might be trying to be gentle, but she doubts anyone ever taught him how. Certainly not her.

His breath is on her neck, and then his mouth. ‘Yours,’ he says against her throat, ‘ _yours_ is precious.’

His fingers undo the buttons on the shirt she’s been sleeping in. It’s sticky with sweat. His hands cling desperately to the skin underneath. He pushes the shirt away, and she watches it fall to the floor where the leopard is nuzzling the monkey.

His mouth moves down her body. ‘Can I—’ he begins.

The intensity in his gaze is too much. She can’t meet his eyes. She only nods, pressing her head back into the pillows.

He whispers pretty things into her skin, like _i missed this_ and _don’t leave me_ , but she ignores him, just like she always ignored the things he said when they were in bed together. He didn’t mean them. He was just drunk on her body, like every other man who gets close enough to touch it.

She tries to pretend its two years ago and her whole world hasn’t fallen apart, but it’s not the same.

Afterwards, the feel of him lingers on her skin. Once, it would have been exciting, dangerous; she would wonder whether Edward could smell, sense another man’s hands on her. Now, it is sticky and unclean. She tries desperately to scrub it off in the washroom, but it lingers. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the tiny, rusted mirror. Her skin has a grey sheen, her cheeks are hollow, her eyes are maddened; this isn’t her.

She wonders if this is what she’ll become if Asriel wants to have her back when they return to England: a wild woman only suited for the arctic wastes. She always imagined that she would be a glamorous, exciting explorer if she were his.

She hasn’t been in control since she arrived in the North. This has to end.

He’s still in her bed when she returns. His eyes are closed, and he looks younger, sweeter than she knows he is. She crawls back in beside him, curls her nose into the crook of his neck. His arm circles her waist and pulls her close. She’ll be cruel, because she must be, but it can wait one more night.

In the morning, the storm has died and the glacier beyond St. Michael’s is bathed in a dark, eery calm. They begin to pack away their things in almost-silence. If they don’t move now, another storm could sweep in and they’ll be here another week.

They stop to smoke and drink coffee at mid-morning, leaning against the windows in the little kitchen with their dæmons curled at their feet. The glacier is lit by a faint pink glow as the sun struggles towards the horizon, but it will not truly rise for months yet.

‘You used to abandon me in England for this,’ she says.

He smiles. It’s more a real _smile_ too, than an animal showing its teeth. ‘Both as cold and beautiful as each other.’

She has the urge to cry. She’s wanted to cry often this past year, so it’s easily put aside. He seems to sense something is wrong though, and he stamps out his cigarette, taking her hand instead. ‘What’s the matter?’

She doesn’t look at him at first. Sometimes, only when it comes to him, she is a coward. ‘You could have left me to die.’

‘I couldn’t. You know it.’

She drops her own cigarette, crushes it under her heel. ‘I don’t, Asriel. I know what you’re capable of.’

‘If it had been me in your place,’ he says, voice low, ‘would you have let me die?’

 _No_ , she would have dragged him through the ice and snow to save him. She hates him for what he has done to her, but she _needs_ him because he is all that keeps her from being alone in the world.

But if it was her in his place—she’d leave herself out there. It would just be easier that way, wouldn’t it?

She raises her chin. ‘I’d have come back when the storm was over,’ she lies, ‘just to check it did the job.’

His grip on her hand turns painful. His short, dirty nails dig into her palm. Marisa shivers and her stomach muscles tighten.

‘You’re despicable,’ he hisses.

‘You wanted me anyway,’ she retorts. She leans forwards, smiles her most vicious smile. ‘You still want me. You can’t stop.’

In these moments, she imagines him consciously deciding whether to kiss her or break her wrist. She wonders how hard she would have to push before he would pick the second option.

The kiss is bruising. It’s like he can’t help himself. She tastes blood from where her already chapped lips have cracked.

‘I don’t know what I ever saw in you. There’s no love inside of you.’

‘Love?’ She laughs, but the sound leaves her mouth strange and broken. ‘You never knew a thing about love.’

He pulls away from her like an anbaric charge has shocked him. His lips part and his brow furrows. She can’t understand why he’d be surprised—he can’t think he ever loved her. Bringing her trinkets from adventures he didn’t bring her on, sneaking into bed with her and murdering her husband at the end of it all—that can’t be love.

He shakes his head. ‘I thought you might finally be civil about this.’ He rubs a hand across his temples. ‘I thought we might work this out. That was foolish, wasn’t it? You were never going to be anything but _this_.’ Stelmaria makes as if to move towards the monkey, but Asriel’s hand curl in her fur, holding her back. ‘

‘I won’t allow you to see Lyra,’ he says. ‘You’ll only poison her mind.’

She thinks of slapping him or spitting in his face— _who is he to judge her?_ —but this is how it has to be. Caring for him, caring for the child would only make her vulnerable and weak like the woman she was when she stumbled onto the ice at the sound of a baby crying.

‘I’ll hate you for this, you know,’ she tells him.

His expression is grim, dark as the polar night. ‘I know,’ he says.

* *

Their journey back to Trollesund is almost unbearably tense. Krispin spends most of it in a state of semi-consciousness, though some colour is beginning to return to his complexion. Asriel paces the length of the airship with his dæmon at his heels. Marisa’s monkey tries to reach out to it once or twice, and Marisa slaps its paw away.

When they land in Trollesund to refuel, he finally speaks to her.

‘I’m going to stay North for a while,’ he says. ‘There’s more work to be done in Svalbard, and I can’t go back to London.’

She stares at him for a moment too long while the words echo round her brain. ‘I didn’t take you for a coward, Asriel.’

‘I am _not_ —’

‘Don’t _lie_ to me. Can you not bear the whispers and the gossip?’

He laughs harshly. ‘I never cared what your precious society friends thought of me, Marisa.’

‘Why, then?’

He shakes his head, breathing out through his teeth. ‘ _You_ , Marisa.’

He doesn’t give her the chance to say anything else. She stands on the airfield as he walks away. He’ll probably die, out there on his own. The thought claws at something inside her, but she doesn’t want to think about why.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ you can occaisonally find me on tumblr [@joanbeauforts](https://joanbeauforts.tumblr.com/).


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